Thursday, September 15, 2011

Ten Journalists in Ten Days: Jose Antonio Vargas

The eighth journalist in my Ten Journalists in Ten Days series is journalist and founder of the website defineamerican.com, Jose Antonio Vargas. Vargas has written articles for The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Washington Post, and The Huffington Post. Vargas was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for his work on coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. In June, 2011 Vargas wrote a personal and incredibly revealing piece for the New York Times entitled “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” In the article Vargas reveals that he is an undocumented immigrant and was unaware of the fact until the age of sixteen. Here Vargas talks with Rachel Maddow about coming out as a gay man, exposing the secret of his immigration status and the state of the immigration debate in the United States.